


Blame

by glacis



Category: Without a Trace
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-26
Updated: 2010-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:14:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin's to blame, and drowning his sorrows doesn't change that fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blame

Blame by Glacis.  Rated NC17, spoilers for season two episodes of Without a Trace.  No copyright infringement intended.

FBI~FBI

“Martin.”

He looked up from the file to see Jack staring down at him.  The light was too low to tell for certain, but it looked like there were tears in Jack’s eyes.  Martin swallowed.  His mouth was dry.  This was it.  He was out.  Viv was out.  It was all his fault.

“I got the report back from OPR.  You and Vivian are cleared for duty.”

His mouth fell open, but he couldn’t for the life of him think of a thing to say.  The stare in Jack’s eye sharpened to a glare, and his voice dropped until only Martin could hear what he said.

“Don’t ever lie to me again.”

I didn’t want to!  I told her we should go to you but…  Martin couldn’t squeeze the words out past his tight throat.  “Sorry.  I’m sorry,” he finally choked.

Jack glared at him for a moment before, the disappointment edging out the anger and crushing Martin where he sat.  Jack nodded, once, abruptly, then turned on his heel and stalked off.

Martin sat there, staring blankly.  A few minutes later Viv stomped around the corner.  Martin transferred his stare from the wall to Viv.  He had no idea how bewildered he looked.  He’d done what she told him.  It was all his fault.  He didn’t know what to do now.  Her expression hardened.  She’d told him one of them should tell Jack, so he had.  Wasn’t that what she wanted him to do?  He was confused.  About everything, except one thing.

He was to blame for all of it.

Viv didn’t say anything.  She walked past him, over to her desk, dumped some files on it and started reading them.  Martin swiveled in his chair, looked at her for long enough for her to say something if she’d wanted to, before giving up and returning to his own work.

The case continued on without them.  Martin watched the wife of the prime suspect go into Jack’s office, coming out half an hour later in custody.  Looked like the wife was the prime suspect herself.  Martin sighed.

There wasn’t a damned thing here for him to do.  His head was splitting, nobody was talking to him, and he didn’t know what to say if anyone tried.  He gave it up as a bad deal and did something he almost never did.

He went to a tavern on east 93rd where the bartender didn’t ask questions.  He ordered a shot of Drambuie, no ice, then two more shots when the first one didn’t make a dent in his headache.  By the fourth shot he couldn’t remember why he didn’t do this very often.  Until Jack sat down next to him.

Oh, yeah, that was it.  Drinking made him nuts.  Funny, though.  A good Highland malt often gave him bad judgment and a loose tongue, but never hallucinations.  This was a new one.  Guess that’s what guilt did to a man.

“What does guilt do to you?” the hallucination who looked and sounded just like Jack asked quietly, accepting a beer from the bartender.

“Talk when I think I’m just thinking,” Martin informed it solemnly.  The mirage nodded.  “Like now.  I hated lying to you, you know.  But she was right.  It was my fault.  All of it.  If I’d’a told you like I wanted to I’d’a felt better cuz I c’n take my lumps but she said it would be…” he lost his train of thought.

The Jack-image had the kindest eyes.  Martin shook away some of the fuzz from his brain and decided the world looked better fuzzy, so he picked up the fifth shot, already lined up like a little soldier.  A hand came out to stop him but he got it down before warm fingers wrapped around his wrist.  “Wow, for a ‘lucination you’re really… hot.”

The Jack-image blinked at him.  Martin sighed, feeling his eyes tearing up, hating himself a ridiculous amount at that moment.  Not, unfortunately, enough to keep his mouth shut, though.

“She said it’d be her ass on the line, cuz daddy’s little boy would come through the shit stink-free.  She’s probably right.  She’s usually always probably right.  But I wanted to tell you.  But she said no, cuz what could you do?  Hell, dad’s already gone after you with a shotgun, practically, he’s just lookin’ for an excuse, and my fuck-up’s all the ‘scuse he’d need.  My fault.  I din’t want to lie to you.  Hated that.  See, this is why I don’t drink.  I can’t shut the fuck up.  I’m stupid when I’m drunk.  She was still right.”

“No,” the weirdly-warm Jack-dream said firmly.  “You were right.  Your instincts were right.  Don’t ever lie to me.  We can work with anything as long as you tell me the truth.”

God, he was incredible.  Smart and empathetic and brilliant and a lot of other multi-syllabic complimentary but true adjectives Martin couldn’t remember because his brain was pickled.  And he was warm.

So Martin leaned over and kissed him.

To his dim surprise, he didn’t fall right through the dream-Jack.  In fact, strong hands caught him by the shoulders and held him in place; while dream-Jack didn’t kiss him back, he didn’t punch him, either, which was an encouraging sign.  At least Martin’s subconscious wasn’t homophobic.  Just confused.  Sad.  Guilty.

Horny.

“Think I need a cab,” Martin muttered in the ear of his hallucination.  “I’m gonna pass out soon, and the bartender isn’t gonna be too happy ‘bout me kissing a guy nobody else can see.”  The Jack-mirage opened its mouth to say something and Martin filled it with his tongue.

Hmm.  Dream-Jack tasted really good.  Like coffee and imported beer.

And shock.

It wasn’t a very long kiss, for all it was a pretty deep one.  Martin pulled himself back the best he could without falling off his stool, and propped one elbow on the bar, resting his cheek on his hand.  “Bartender,” he asked politely, “please.  Cab.  Home.  Now.”

The world fuzzed out a little after that.  It seemed like the bartender and imaginary Jack had a conversation, but that must have been the whiskey talking.  Not long afterward he was in a car, and it looked like Jack was driving, but that fit in with the whole drunken Jack-taking-care-of-Martin theme of the evening, so Martin drifted and ignored what couldn’t be happening.

Then they were at Martin’s door, though Martin didn’t remember giving the cabbie his address.  That was okay, though, because warm ghost Jack was gingerly patting his pockets looking for his keys, and if Martin hadn’t been plastered off his feet it wouldn’t have gotten him hard.  And getting hard because your hallucination was accidentally feeling you up was just pathetic, so it was a good thing nobody’d ever know.

Martin told his imaginary companion every thought rambling through his brain as he fumbled the keys out of his pocket and into the warm hand.  Then he stumbled through the doorway on the heels of his hallucination, kicked the door shut using muscle memory because his aim was fucked, pulled the heavy black coat off the broad shoulders, pinned the hallucination to the door so it couldn’t get away, and kissed it again.

It was hard.  Which apparently surprised the dream Jack as much as it did Martin, because suddenly the warm hands were hard, too, pushing him away, and Martin didn’t want that at all.

“Please,” he said, and “I’m sorry,” and “I’ll never do it again,” and “My fault.”  Somewhere in there he’d wrestled his imaginary boss and maybe lover to a standstill and gotten the black trousers undone and the cotton boxers pushed out of the way and the hard hot real-tasting cock in his mouth.  And the hard hands were on his head, then in his hair, and they weren’t hard anymore, but they were still warm.

And Jack tasted like bitter salt, as much as coffee and beer.  But at least Martin wasn’t talking anymore.

Neither was Jack.

In the morning, Martin woke up with a splitting headache.  A glass of water and three aspirin were on the table next to the bed.  His jacket, tie, belt and shoes were off.  His shirt was untucked.  His knees were sore, and so was his jaw.  He’d come in his pants.

He didn’t remember getting hard.

He also didn’t remember getting to bed.  Everything was pretty blurry after the first couple shots of whiskey.  He’d dreamed of Jack, and guilt, and Viv, and his father, then Jack again.

Somehow, he had a suspicion that Jack tasted like coffee and beer and salt.  He also knew he’d never find out for sure.  Because Jack would never say a word.  And Martin would never ask.

It was all Martin’s fault.

Again.

END


End file.
